DiManno: ‘Eyes of the world were on NATO,’ Canadian general says

NAPLES, ITALY—Just as we’d always suspected, if more wryly than with alarm: the rat was in the cellar.

Moammar Gadhafi did indeed bivouac in the basement of the posh Rixos Hotel — compulsory Tripoli lodgings for foreign journalists through months of the stalled Libyan revolution — confident that NATO planes would not bomb that location.

“Absolutely,’’ confirms Lt.-Gen. Charles Bouchard, the Canadian in command of Operation Unified Protector, formal name of the interventionist NATO mission mandated by the United Nations Security Council.

“He was there,’’ Bouchard told the Star during an interview this week at Joint Force Command headquarters here. “It’s not a secret anymore. He could drive in a golf cart through the tunnels that stretched all the way from (his compound) Bab al-Aziziya, under the zoo next door and into the hotel. That’s how he would appear out of nowhere, disappear, and pop up somewhere else.’’

It might also explain why reporters were held hostage at the Rixos for five days by Gadhafi loyalists, even as the capital was falling to surging rebel forces a fortnight ago.

The former strongman’s whereabouts are unknown, though members of his family and, it would appear, remnants of his regime have surfaced in neighbouring Algeria. Bouchard claims to be indifferent about Gadhafi’s coordinates or his fate.

“I don’t think he’s in Tripoli. I don’t think he’s in Bani Walid. I don’t think he’s in Sirte. Those places are surrounded and he’d be hard-pressed to escape,” he said.

“It isn’t important to me, where he is. But it does matter to Libyans because capturing Gadhafi will bring closure for them. I look at Kosovo and the Balkans and I firmly believe he should be brought to justice meted out by the International Criminal Court. These are the systems in place. The legitimacy of this whole operation is to use those international systems we believe in.’’

What comes after — should Gadhafi ever be taken into custody – is a political matter, perhaps ultimately determined by the Transitional National Council, if the ousted dictator is run to ground within Libya. And Bouchard is a soldier, not a politician. His orders, he insists, were never about Gadhafi.

“People find it hard to believe that we didn’t target Gadhafi but we did not.’’

Bouchard reiterates the contents of Security Council Resolution 1973, passed in March, which compelled NATO to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone, though the definition was clearly broadened in interpretation to promote regime change in tacit alliance with one side — the rebel forces.

“People say we went after regime change,’’ says Bouchard. “We didn’t. But we did what was necessary to make sure that we wouldn’t be coming back next summer to do the same thing all over again. We targeted command and control nodes. Whether it was a corporal or a general inside, if someone was giving orders to kill people, we dealt with it.’’

The career soldier — a helicopter pilot by training from Chicoutimi, Que., headed for immediate retirement at the end of this mission — shrugs off the debate over regime-toppling disguised as humanitarian intervention. They were, he suggests, inextricably linked because loyalist fighters backed off only so far as NATO planes could push them as the campaign dragged on.

“Do you really think we could have just left after Benghazi? Benghazi was spared and then Ajdabiya got shelled. Brega was sitting there and we would have been back in three months if it had fallen. Misurata was shelled right into August. There was shelling in Zawiya as late as two weeks ago. There was shelling in Sabha over the weekend.

“I see too many people high-fiving now but we’re not done yet.’’ He summons a sports analogy. “We’re in the third quarter but we’ve still got a game to finish.’’

Over nearly six months, NATO pilots — including Canadians — destroyed more than 5,000 military targets in Libya, concentrating on supply lines, depots and communication networks. Yet Bouchard gives primary credit to rebels on the ground for the sudden and stunning fall of Tripoli.

“These were bakers, lawyers and university students who took up weapons for the first time, who said, we’re not going to take it anymore. When you consider that in five months they were able to do what they accomplished — I think that’s brilliant.

“It was their victory. They earned it and they paid for it with blood and they did very well. Good on them.’’

While it’s generally understood, if not confirmed, that Britain and France put “advisers’’ on the ground, possibly Special Forces, to assist the rebels tactically, Bouchard denies NATO had coordinated with revolutionary fighters.

“It was really more a matter of observing and trying to see how they were learning, what they were doing, studying their movements and adapting to it. That’s not coordination, not synchronization. It’s watching from the outside. That’s the tricky part — watching and trying to adapt to shape the environment.

“A lot of people said, you’re taking too long. But this was a campaign and you’ve got to build the foundation, understand it. And — I don’t want to be self-serving — but this was probably the most precise kinetic campaign ever conducted by NATO. That ensured the population saw us as supporting them instead of hurting them, that we were there to prevent violence against them. It was rigorous and we worked hard but we stuck to the plan.

“They were the ones who were able to capitalize on their own success. At one point, it became evident to us that they were ready to do it.’’

Sacking the capital would have to be entirely a rebel initiative. “It was clear that we (NATO) couldn’t take Tripoli. You can’t do it from 30,000 feet.’’

Once the anti-Gadhafi fighters breached the capital’s ramparts, there was little NATO could contribute.

“We couldn’t get into that furball,” says Bouchard. “We couldn’t get into the middle of that spaghetti bowl because you don’t know who’s who. They’re not wearing uniforms, the equipment’s the same. There was no way we could bomb Tripoli. That close-in battle — it was their fight, not ours. So you let them deal with it while we concentrated on removing the capability for (loyalist forces) to hit Tripoli with long-range weapons.

“And it turned out, for this campaign, to be the viable way of doing business.’’

Critically, by that juncture NATO had destroyed Gadhafi’s capacity to defend or go on the offensive. As well, as Bouchard had strategized, the bulk of loyalist troops would refuse to stand and fight once they’d been severed from their leadership — which was effectively accomplished by destroying command structure and communication.

Bouchard had access to sophisticated surveillance but, as the capital fell to the rebel advance, he watched events unfold on TV, like everyone else. “I was amazed at the speed that it happened.’’

As a military tactician, Bouchard offers an explanation for how it went so catastrophically wrong for Gadhafi.

“He thought, I’ve got a bunch of bandits in Benghazi, I’ll go out and deal with that. He felt that Misurata could be thrown into the sea. And he banked a lot that the battle for Tripoli would be linear. What he didn’t realize was that there were a lot of people who really didn’t like this regime. I don’t think he expected the whole country would rise up against him.

“All of a sudden, BOOM, the whole thing exploded on him. It was coming from all fronts. That unbalanced him because he didn’t have enough assets to be everywhere.’’

Bouchard, with fewer aircraft available to him than were deployed during Kosovo, devised a methodical plan of action that was often criticized, even by rebel commanders who demanded a more aggressive approach. But he knew what he was doing and because of Bouchard’s exacting, deliberate command, NATO can claim its share of victory. That is hugely significant for an alliance facing doubts about capacity and capability, especially in the wake of Afghanistan, with its very raison d’être challenged in some quarters.

“The eyes of the world were on NATO,’’ Bouchard acknowledges. “It was important for NATO — Europe and Canada, because too many people keep forgetting that Canada is here, too — to play a critical role here; to show that, for this environment, we could bring sufficient firepower, with all the critical and unique capabilities pulled together.

“There was not one NATO boot on the ground,’’ adds Bouchard, who was also deputy commander of Joint Force Command before the Libya assignment. “But because of precious weaponeering, we didn’t have to go back twice to hit targets twice. You hit it hard once, then it’s done and over with.’’

Lessons learned, especially from the Balkans and Serbia, were applied in Libya, including the proviso that civilian infrastructure would not be struck. “We would not touch a lot of stuff to make sure that we wouldn’t have to rebuild it. We learned that you don’t break it all, just the things that you really need to take out.’’

And the bombers were extraordinarily cautious to avoid civilian casualties. Bouchard recalls one instance especially:

“There was a soccer game going on right beside Bab al-Aziziya, next to two air defence systems. Kids playing — the human shield concept again. We waited two hours for them to finish the game. We made sure they had left. Once they were gone, we struck and both air defence systems were destroyed.’’

Soon, though Bouchard won’t put a time limit on it, Operation Unified Protector will wind up — either when the National Transitional Council says NATO involvement is no longer needed or when the alliance’s top military hierarchy determines all objectives have been met. Bouchard will then turn to the paperwork, a closing Mission Libya dissertation for the brass and NATO’s political leaders; a potential roadmap for next time around.

He observes: “The first lesson is, don’t try to apply Libya to the next conflict. Don’t equip your forces or plan the next campaign like this one because, technically, if we’d run this one like Afghanistan, we wouldn’t have achieved the status that we have today.’’

Bouchard is asked if he would like, after all, to some day see Gadhafi face-to-face, the man who was purportedly not his target and not his nemesis. He answers promptly:

“No. I have no respect for him so why would I bother? I don’t consider Gadhafi courageous. In fact, I’ll go further — I think he’s a coward.’’

He pauses.

“But I would like to see Libya — some day.’’

Origin
Source: Toronto Star